ESPN W
ESPN
Issue 39 | June 2016
Agency
Africa Sao Paulo
Creative Team
CCO Sergio Gordilho Executive Creative Directors Alvaro Rodrigues Eco Moliterno Rafael Pitanguy Creative Directors Bernardo Romero Pedro Bullos Associate Creative Director Juliana Uchoa Creative team Angerson Cassio Ramos Vieira Vinicius Turani Costa Raynier Araujo dos Santos Rick Garcia Barbosa Bernardo Romero Juliana Uchoa
Production Team
Motion Design Filipe Birck Agency Producers Rodrigo Ferrari Patricia Melito Valdir dos Santos Leonardo de Jesus Client Services Celina Esteves Juliana Carvalho Beatriz Pedrosa Mariana Ruschi Production Company Bando Studio Director Ale Paschoalini Post production Mosh Post Sound design Jamute
Other Credits
Media Luiz Fernando Vieira Fernando Nogueira Rodrigo Vieira Vinicius Zeller Denis Simaro Planning Marcia Neri Rosenberg Gabriel Caramelo Eccher Client Approval Sarah Buchwitz Andre Quadra Tomas Casabal Leandro Simoes Beatriz Cunha
Date
March 2016
Background
Sports network ESPN planned to launch its women's sports portal, ESPNW, in Brazil. In Brazil, sports like football, basketball, surfing and volleyball were hugely popular. Now this new portal offered access to the sports and the stars women were interested in, taking them inside the major events.
Idea
The core idea was to draw attention to the fact that women athletes are as talented as their male counterparts. But they are not as famous, even among female sports fans.
Africa based its campaign on the idea of a sports quiz.
A panel of men and women was brought together and tested on their general sporting knowledge.
The participants saw film of various sports – football, basketball, surfing – but these were shown in negative so only the shapes of the athletes was clear, their identities hidden. The participants were asked to identify who scored the goal, shot the hoop and so on.
Without fail, male and female sports fans guessed male stars – the likes of Neymar, Messi or Kobe Bryant.
It was revealed that all the clips featured top female athletes, like footballer Marta Vieira or surfer Maya Gabeira.
Embarrassed contestants admitted that when they thought about athletes, they normally thought about men.
Results
The campaign launched on March 8, International Women's Day and at the time of writing, it's too early to give results.
Our Thoughts
With the Rio Olympics coming up, the timing of the launch of ESPNW was spot on. No doubt, as the various Brazilian women's teams won medals, interest in the portal would spike.
But that would be an easy option. Far better, for ESPN, to acquire momentum before the games.
Challenging perceptions and prejudices is an established advertising trick (just think of detergent ads or the Pepsi taste test), but hard to pull off in an area like this without putting your credibility on the line or patronising your audience.
Conventional launch tactics might have suggested just pulling together a load of star female athletes and having them perform, as in Nike ads, a series of clichéd juggling tricks. But aren't we bored with those?
This is more fun and altogether engaging. And you can see the genuine embarrassment in the audience when they realise they gave away their prejudices. "I never thought it could be a woman," says one – a woman, of course.